While prior art as described below has disclosed many concepts for attempting to improve emergency vehicle warnings there is no stand alone separate warning device to be mounted on or near a traffic light that when activated by on coming emergency vehicles specifically emits warning alerts to the drivers of vehicles and pedestrians in the area. The main concepts found in the prior art are those that teach having the emergency vehicles themselves control traffic lights themselves through signaling them directly which have the inherit problems that the decisions how to get out of the emergency vehicle path are actually taken out of the control of the pedestrian drivers and now fully dependant on the traffic light automation which could become confused from multiple signals from multiple on coming emergency vehicles that may even becoming from different directions or different roads that intersect or both. The instructions may not be able to physically direct all vehicles in all paths correctly through the traffic light instructions. The second most common solution has been systems that have the emergency vehicles contacting the driver's vehicles directly through transmitters and receivers for individualized notification. The problems in that concept are that firstly the normal procedure is not to look down at gps or monitors when driving as you have to watch the road so deaf drivers would not be helped here and it is not a uniform solution as no one will know who was correctly notified and who does not have a device in their car or has a defective device potentially causing chaos, whereas our invention will be utilized so that when drivers look at traffic lights to determine road instructions as they are usually accustomed to do they will easily also be able to view and in most cases hear our emergency vehicle warning invention.
The Darnall Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,417,782 teaches a signal and an alert directly to the personal moving vehicles surrounding the emergency vehicle As stated above The problems in that concept are that firstly the normal procedure is not to look down at gps or monitors when driving as you have to watch the road so deaf drivers would not be helped here and it is not a uniform solution as no one will know who was correctly notified and who does not have a device in their car or has a defective device potentially causing chaos, whereas our invention will be utilized so that when drivers look at traffic lights to determine road instructions as they are usually accustomed to do they will easily also be able to view and in most cases hear our emergency vehicle warning invention.
Darnall also describes an existing traffic light control system as follows:
It is known that 3M Transportation Systems has a system entitled the Opticom Priority Control System or other similar title. This system provides a method of turning intersection lights green in the path of oncoming emergency vehicles, providing the safest and quickest avenue for the emergency vehicle to reach the emergency scene or medical provider. It enables the emergency vehicle driver to control the intersections by controlling the lights in the emergency vehicle's path and the lights of the cross traffic cutting across the emergency vehicle's path.
The Opticom Priority Control System basically works with three components: First, an emitter (first component) is mounted on the emergency vehicle, usually on its roof. It sends a coded optical message to the detector (second component), mounted above the traffic signal. The detector converts the optical message to an electronic impulse and sends it to the phase selector (third component) in the intersection controller cabinet. If the traffic light is already green, the phase selector tells the controller to hold the light green until the emergency vehicle passes. If the traffic light is red, the phase selector requests the controller to provide an early green traffic light, cycling through a yellow light to avoid any confusion to motorists and pedestrians. Once the emergency vehicle passes through the intersection, the system returns the traffic signal to its normal operation. Such a system has been installed in more than 35,000 intersections across the United States and Canada, and has earned a track record over years of sustained quality performance.
As stated above inherit problems that could happen with this kind of system is that the decisions how to get out of the emergency vehicle path are actually taken out of the control of the pedestrian drivers and now fully dependant on the traffic light automation which could become confused from multiple signals from multiple on coming emergency vehicles that may even becoming from different directions or different roads that intersect or both. The instructions may not be able to physically direct all vehicles in all paths correctly through the traffic light instructions.
The Sorden Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,197, teaches a vehicle location system.
The Rode Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,565,874, teaches an Intelligent Vehicle Highway System for controlling vehicles moving down the road and refers to issues pertaining to the Global Positioning System and infrared technology.
The Beinke Patent, U.S. Pat No. 6,404,351 teaches of a emergency vehicle warning system allowing for communication between emergency vehicles and other vehicles to warn them and also communication between emergency vehicles and traffic lights to change the traffic lights from green to red and vice versa, utilizing radio frequency transmission and reception. As discussed above our invention solves the inherent issues arising from utilizing vehicle to vehicle transmission to warn and the utilization of transmission from emergency vehicles to directly control traffic signals themselves. Also our invention teaches utilizing better and more efficient means for transmission then radio frequency as our preferred modes of transmission.
The Serageldin Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,931, teaches a signal adaptive processor and includes an algorithm, which devise is installed in vehicles to detect and recognize siren sounds from approaching vehicles. Our invention solves inherent issues arising from utilizing vehicle to vehicle transmission and detection to warn including the requirement that each motorist is equipped with such a devise, that is additionally in maintained and good working order. This invention requires an additional added cost for each motorist in purchasing the additional unit and requires proper installation. For automakers it presents new added costs and challenges as well as responsibilities. An additional task is for governments and authorities to be able to monitor who has the devise and who still needs to install one. It suggests that only some motorists will have this added protection and the technology of detection of siren sounds and recognition of them all is still not absolute and is subject to false positives and negatives.
The Johnson Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,064, teaches similar but different methods for transmission from vehicle to vehicle and transmitting measurement information so the passenger vehicle can have the data to describe accurate distances between vehicles. The invention carries similar inherent issues as Serageldin that our present invention solves which are more fully described above.
The Joy Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,656, teaches of an audio range siren detector used to control existing traffic lights which could at times be unreliable as the technology of detection of siren sounds and recognition of them all is still not absolute and is subject to false positives and negative and controlling existing traffic lights as suggested above has inherent problems and issues as described above.